The media has reported extensively on the flurry of activity surrounding Donald Trump’s first week in office. But perhaps “flurry” is not the right meteorological analogy. To myself and many others it seems more like a destructive hurricane.

So many unprecedented events filled the news cycle this week, that is it impossible to comment on them all. For those who wish a refresher, this brief summary from British television should suffice. Overall, it provides a rather chilling tally not only of a long-anticipated right-wing wish list, but also of actions to curtail civil liberties and democratic freedoms including the freedom of dissent, information and expression.

As noteworthy as these events have been – many of them gathering considerable media attention – what has been going on behind the scenes is even more important in the long run, And unfortunately, this has not been given near the attention it deserves.

As the Senate confirmation hearings of Trump’s Cabinet appointees has revealed, there is considerable daylight between some of their positions and those of Trump himself. Politico reported this week that to ensure they do not stray from Trump’s own agenda,

The White House is installing senior aides atop major federal agencies to shadow the administration’s Cabinet secretaries, creating a direct line with loyalists who can monitor and shape White House goals across the federal bureaucracy.

Then there is Donald Trump’s so-called “war” with the media. Things are falling into place for him to erect his own tightly controlled alternative to the public media. In mid-December the newly-convened Congress passed legislation to abolish the independent body that oversees government-backed media outlets like Voice of America, replacing it with a chief executive named by the President and approved by the Senate. As Politico reported this week,

On the first Monday of his administration, Trump, who has flirted with the idea of launching his own TV network, deployed two “transition officials” who will evaluate the managers and studios of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which has an annual budget of $800 million and includes Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcast Networks.

Many people are not aware that legislation passed in 2013 now permits these government-funded outlets to broadcast to American audiences as well as to those in other countries. Throughout the cold war, the Voice of America was the official propaganda arm of the U. S. government, and some people within this organization are now concerned that it may be turned into a propaganda mouthpiece for the Trump administration.

Note that this comes on the heels of Trump railing against CNN and Buzzfeed as “fake news” at his first official press conference, his press secretary Sean Spicer attacking the news media the day after the election for not backing Trump’s false claims on the size of the inauguration crowd, and Trump himself launching a similar attack on the public media during his visit to the CIA headquarters, calling journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” The next day Trump’s chief White House Strategist, Stephen Bannon, called the media “the opposition party, and stated that “It should keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.” The following day Trump said that he fully concurred with Bannon’s view.

The Bannon Factor

This kind of rhetoric is completely unprecedented, and one might well wonder what is behind it. The source of this animosity toward the mainstream media does not seem to originate with either Donald Trump or his Press Secretary Sean Spicer (or even his chief spokesperson and surrogate Kellyanne Conway). All the evidence points to it originating with Donald Trump’s Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon.

Among Mr. Trump’s advisers in the White House, Mr. Bannon is responsible for putting into action the nationalist vision that Mr. Trump channeled during the later months of the campaign, one that stemmed from Mr. Bannon himself. And in many ways Mr. Trump has acted on that vision during his first week in office — from the description of “American carnage” he laid out in his inauguration speech to a series of executive actions outlining policies on trade agreements, immigration and the building of a border wall.

Mr. Bannon is one of the strongest forces in an administration with competing power centers. A savvy manipulator of the press, and a proud provocateur, he was among the few advisers in Mr. Trump’s circle who were said to have urged Sean Spicer, the new press secretary, to give a confrontational, emotional statement to a shocked West Wing briefing room on Saturday, when the White House disputed news reports about the size of the inauguration crowd.

A very revealing article in Axios this week reveals the extent of Bannon’s influence in the Trump administration (along with policy guru Stephen Miller):

They wrote the Inaugural speech and set in fast motion a series of moves to cement Trump as an America-first Nationalist.

They maneuvered to get more key allies inside the White House and positioned for top agency jobs.

Theywrote many of the executive orders, sometimes with little input from others helping with the transition.

They egged on Trump to take a combative approach with the media, China, Mexico and critics.

And Bannon punctuated the week with a full-throated, Trump-pleasing bashing of the media.

Just how small this group of decision-makers is was revealed this week is a series of reports stating that

President Donald Trump’s team made little effort to consult with federal agency lawyers or lawmakers as they churned out executive actions this week, stoking fears the White House is creating the appearance of real momentum with flawed orders that might be unworkable, unenforceable or even illegal.

For example,

The White House didn’t ask State Department experts to review Trump’s memorandum on the Keystone XL pipeline

And

Defense Secretary James Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo were “blindsided” by a draft order that would require agencies to reconsider using interrogation techniques that are currently banned as torture

In addition,

Just a small circle of officials at the Department of Health and Human Services knew about the executive action starting to unwind Obamacare, and only less than two hours before it was released. Key members of Congress weren’t consulted either, according to several members. And at a conference in Philadelphia, GOP legislators say they had no idea whether some of the executive orders would contrast with existing laws — because they hadn’t reviewed them.

This was especially true with regard to Trump’s executive order limiting the entry of refugees into the U.S. issued this past Friday. Politicoreported that

When President Donald Trump declared at the Pentagon Friday he was enacting strict new measures to prevent domestic terror attacks, there were few within his government who knew exactly what he meant.

Administration officials weren’t immediately sure which countries’ citizens would be barred from entering the United States. The Department of Homeland Security was left making a legal analysis on the order after Trump signed it.

Furthermore,

It wasn’t until Friday — the day Trump signed the order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days and suspending all refugee admission for 120 days — that career homeland security staff were allowed to see the final details of the order.

It is completely unheard of for the Executive office to not vet its executive orders with the Department of Justice or to keep its Cabinet officers and department heads in the dark about them until after they are proclaimed. Stephen Bannon along with a tiny group within Trump’s circle of trusted advisors are in many cases drafting these articles without proper consultation with the offices that must implement them. It is the kind of unilateral (even dictatorial) action that President Obama was (without justification) frequently accused of taking, but which is quickly becoming a hallmark of the Trump Administration.

Since the inauguration, Stephen Bannon has been busy consolidating his influence within Trump’s inner circle with the facilitation of Trump himself. On Friday Donald Trump issued an executive order restructuring the National Security Council, creating a new position installing Stephen Bannon on the Council alongside the Secretary of Defense (James “Mad Dog” Mattis) and Secretary of State (Rex Tillerson). At the same time, the Director of National Intelligence (Dan Coats) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen. Joseph Dunford) are being shunted to the side and will henceforth only attend committee meetings that pertain to their “specific responsibilities and expertise.” David Ferguson notes that while serving on the council “Bannon will be privy to some of the country’s most highly classified military and intelligence secrets.”

By way of contrast, Tillerson will assume his position as Secretary of State in a very weakened position. On Wednesday it was announced that the entire State Department Management Team had been fired by the Trump administration. As Allegra Kirkland reported for Talking Points Memo,

“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” David Wade, State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry, told the newspaper. “Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector.”

This leaves Stephen Bannon as the second most powerful person in the Trump administration next to the Donald Trump himself. It has been reported that he sits in on all of Trump’s phone calls with international leaders, and has a direct hand in all major decisions.

Who is Stephen Bannon?

Sixty-three year old Stephen Bannon was a founding member of Breitbart News, an extremist right-wing online news service dominated by provocative reporting and “fake news.” Upon Andrew Breitbart’s death in 2012, Bannon became its Editor-at-Large. As David Ferguson explains, Bannon

presided over the expansion of Breitbart.com from a fringe right-wing web community to a sprawling hub of the so-called “alt-right,” a collection of white nationalists, racists, anti-feminists and neo-Nazis.

Bannon has goals. One of those goals is maximization of personal power, which is why he spent the last decade and a half glomming onto powerful right-wing personalities … and then moving on up the chain. With [Andrew] Breitbart and Trump, he picked two winners in a row – and that means he’s now at the pinnacle of American power.

So, what will he do with that power? He’ll target enemies. Bannon is one of the most vicious people in politics. … [M]ore importantly, Bannon’s interested in turning the Republican Party into a far-right European party.

Bannon’s personal agenda was further clarified by Ronald Radosh on the day after Trump’s inauguration when he related a conversation he had with Bannon at a social gathering back in 2013. In their conversation, rather describing himself as a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed, “I’m a Leninist.” He quickly clarified that by this he did not mean that not mean that he was a communist (he was most certainly not), but rather that he saw himself as a radical revolutionary.

“Lenin,” he said, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

By “all of today’s establishment” he meant the traditional establishment parties – both Democratic and Republican – as well as the traditional conservative press.

Donald Trump found in the Breitbart press managed by Bannon exactly the kind of anti-establishment message that appealed to him. Bannon became one of Trump’s most trusted allies in waging his own public war against the existing political “establishment,” and Trump soon brought him into his inner circle. When Trump’s Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort was forced to resign from the Trump campaign after his lobbying work for pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs became public, Trump turned to Bannon, naming him as his “chief strategist and senior counselor.”

In November The Hillreported that although Bannon is best known for his populist nationalist views on domestic issues such as immigration, he is also “fascinated with the military and global affairs.”

Bannon admires right-wing nationalists and hard-line illegal immigration opponents in Europe and elsewhere. He wants to work more closely with them and sees them as part of a worldwide movement to overthrow the “globalists,” according to multiple sources familiar with his thinking.

Bannon is a longtime skeptic of international alliances like the United Nations and the European Union. He cheered on Brexit — the decision made by British voters in a June referendum to leave the EU — and he admires French National Front leader Marine Le Pen.

This may be the first time that an actual agent provocateur has held a key position within an American administration. Donald Trump trusts Stephen Bannon implicitly, and has given him access to all aspects of administrative responsibilities. As Trump’s chief strategist he is responsible for rolling out the president’s executive orders, his media events, and his public pronouncements. He is both the gate keeper and the initiator operating behind the scenes. Everything that Trump does passes through his hands and is shaped by his counsel.

One ultimately has to ask, who is really in charge of the presidency? Donald Trump the showman? Or Stephen Bannon the presence behind the throne?

During the primary battles Donald Trump made his attack on the Republican establishment a central feature of his campaign. With his strong populist message, he ultimately triumphed over all of his primary contenders and decisively clinched the Republican nomination.

Yet Donald Trump was a contentious figure from the very beginning. Many prominent Republicans saw him as being so objectionable and abrasive that they could not support him. Some claimed he was not a “true” Republican, citing the many years that Trump was a registered Democrat supporting Democratic candidates and policies, before becoming an Independent, and only a few years ago joining the Republican Party.

Establishment Republicans, incensed that Trump was taking the Party away from its traditional ideals, fought back. They mounted a vigorous “Never Trump” campaign which, for a time, seemed to be gaining steam. By the final weeks of the presidential campaign 275 prominent Republicans either currently or previously serving in federal state and party administrations had gone on record saying they could not in good conscience vote for Donald Trump. Another 55 conservative academics, journalists and commentators had also declared their opposition to Trump.

On the other side of the fence, Bernie Sanders mounted a vigorous populist campaign from the left during the primary season against the favored establishment candidate of the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton. The Sanders campaign strongly criticized the Democratic National Committee for siding with Clinton and working behind the scenes to ensure her nomination. In the end, despite summoning large enthusiastic crowds wherever he went and winning 22 state primaries, Bernie Sanders had to yield to Clinton as the Democratic nominee.

Despite Hillary Clinton’s embrace of some of Sander’s progressive language, most observers were convinced that she actually represented the party’s establishment center and would remain faithful to its ideals if elected.

The resulting contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the official candidates of the two parties quickly devolved into a mudslinging match over personalities and trustworthiness rather than policy issues. Americans as a whole were disappointed with both candidates. In the tallying of last Tuesday’s vote it was discovered that many people had left the top of their ballots blank, voting for neither presidential candidate, while filling in the remainder of the ballot largely along party lines.

After all the votes have been counted (they are still being tabulated) Hillary Clinton, the Democratic establishment candidate, is expected to win the popular vote by some 2 million votes. However, Donald Trump has chalked up the most Electoral College votes, and in the early hours of Wednesday morning was proclaimed as the President-elect.

Laying a New Course

Donald Trump’s victory leaves a divided party in its wake. Populism triumphed over conservative ideology, leaving many party conservatives on the outside looking in. Commentators have noted Trump’s long record of vindictiveness toward those who publicly oppose him. The experienced establishment old-hands within the party who had opposed him will have no place in his administration.

This divide extends to sitting members of Congress. Following the shift in conservative ideology in Congress with the rise of the Tea Party in 2010 (typified by Ted Cruz and others), Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is seen by many as the last prominent torchbearer of Reaganite Republicanism. But now that too is in jeopardy.

On the night of the election, as Paul Ryan was back in his home state of Wisconsin with his supporters celebrating his re-election victory (with Fox News coverage of the election playing in the background), Sean Hannity came on the TV saying that Paul Ryan should not remain Speaker of the House since he had not supported Donald Trump during the campaign.

This past weekend Donald Trump announced that Steve Bannon would serve as the chief strategist in his administration working on par with (rather than under) Reince Priebus who will be Trump’s Chief of Staff. Bannon, who was senior editor of Breitbart News before becoming the head of Trump’s campaign team, has targeted Paul Ryan as the “the enemy” – the very epitome of establishment Republicanism. He called on his staff at Breitbart to destroy Ryan, pledging that he would be gone as Speaker by this spring.”

A battle for control of the House and Senate looms as Donald Trump and his administrative team prepare to take charge. It is not the traditional battle between Democrats and Republicans – Republicans have a safe majority in both Houses following the election – but between sitting establishment Republicans and the Trump Administration.

A cardinal feature of traditional Republican ideology has been a commitment to small government and balanced budgets. Yet Donald Trump has promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a comprehensive system of coverage that is “even better,” to launch a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure renewal program, and to end sequestering and dramatically increase military expenditures, all while reducing taxes.

The conservative critic David Frum has stated that Donald Trump is bringing the same business plan to government that he has used so successfully in his own business empire, namely, borrow as much money as you can from other people and never pay it back.

Will conservatives in Congress go along with Trump’s return to “big government” (Keynesian-styled) expenditures to expand the economy with its resulting huge deficits, or will they balk? The next vote on the Debt Ceiling comes up in mid-March, shortly after Congress resumes sitting, so we shall soon see.

Members of Congress must choose their sides carefully. Donald Trump has displayed a well-established pattern of retaliating against all those who publicly oppose or criticize him. If members don’t side with Trump, will their access to campaign funds be cut when they seek re-election? Will they be primaried out of the nomination? The pressure on them to back Trump’s agenda will be immense – even if it flies in the face of traditional conservative Republican values.

On the other hand, if the Republican members of Congress closely align themselves with the Trump administration and the economy tanks, or inflation spikes, or the anticipated job numbers don’t improve, or the US becomes mired down in another war, or Trump is brought down in a major scandal – in short, if the Trump revolution falls apart for any of a variety of reasons – will voters blame his supporters in Congress for the mess? Will these Republicans be able to survive the next election referendum?

The Challenge for Democrats

Democrats also face a number of challenges in the days and months ahead. In backing the widely disliked establishment candidate from their own party in the 2016 election, they have not only forfeited the presidency, but also both houses of Congress.

Just as the Republican Party did after their 2012 election loss to Barack Obama, they will need to conduct a thorough post mortem to determine why they lost this election so unexpectedly and decisively. They will need to identify their own winning coalition of voters for the next election and decide how they can best appeal to them.

If they are wise, they will revisit the Bernie Sanders phenomenon of the primary season and identify the factors that so enthused his base (Hillary had her loyalists, but she never succeeded in enthusing the masses). One basic factor is already evident: Bernie excited younger voters; they turned out for him in huge numbers. They identified with him in a way that they never did with Hillary Clinton. Polls show that if Bernie Sanders had been on the ticket opposite Donald Trump he would have won the election handily.

The nation’s demographics are changing. The baby boomer generation is retiring and will soon be dropping in numbers while the millennial generation continues to grow in size and influence. One remarkable map drawn up after the election shows how the electoral college vote would have gone if one only counted the votes cast by 18 – 25 year olds. It would have generated an enormous landslide of 504 votes for the Democratic candidate to just 23 for Donald Trump.

The Sanders faction is not waiting around for the next election. They have launched campaigns to replace party officials in many states and are actively lobbying for the selection of a new Chair of the Democratic National Committee who will be more supportive of their concerns. And they are already lining up progressive candidates for the next presidential election in 2020.

The 2016 election marked a remarkable sea change in American politics. In a very real sense, the primary division is no longer between conservatives and liberals but between establishment and populist candidates. In this election the establishment candidates – on both sides of the aisle – lost out, while voters rallied around their populist choices.

In the coming months we will witness parallel contests within the Republican and the Democratic camps for control of the party machinery moving forward to the next election. Will the establishment forces be able to wrestle control back from the populist insurgents? Or will the populists – on both the left and right – become the new face of both parties?

This week Donald J. Trump was formally declared to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. In his acceptance speech Trump capitalized on fear, presenting a dystopian view of America, and blaming blacks, Hispanic migrants, Muslims, and foreign actors for America’s woes.

KKK leader David Duke claimed that he could not have said it any better. A fact check of Trump’s statements reveals nearly every one to be a distortion of the facts. It is well worth reading.

Throughout his campaign for the presidency, Trump has promised to bring a grand solution to America’s problems without supplying any details and without providing any kind of roadmap for getting there. In his acceptance speech he presented himself as the “law and order” candidate, the strongman America needs in its hour of peril who will singlehandedly deliver America from its internal and external enemies.

His message was simple and direct: Trust me. I am the only one who can save America. “I am the only one who can do this.” Against the massive backdrop of the stage – changed overnight from RNC silver to Trump gold – and with his name emblazoned bigger than anyone could imagine, the message was clear that this event marked the coronation of “King Trump.”

To be quite honest, I genuinely fear for America’s future. The fact that 40% or more of Americans polled say they actually support Donald Trump for president scares me. I still believe that he will not win the election. He is far too divisive, polarizing, narcissistic, bombastic, nasty, and erratic to win the confidence of the majority of Americans. (At least I fervently hope this is the case.)

But Donald Trump has accomplished one very important thing. He has (likely permanently) changed ground rules of campaigning.

In making his statement that “we will not be politically correct” a near constant theme in his campaign (and in not being called out on it by a timid media),

Trump has succeeded in normalizing hate speech in American politics.

He has normalized lying and deception.

He has normalized scapegoating and personal attacks.

He has normalized demonizing one’s opponents.

He has normalized misogyny and xenophobia.

He has normalized fear mongering and physical attacks on other.

He has made all of these things “acceptable.”

We can expect to see these tactics employed again in future campaigns. I am not so much worried that Donald Trump will be able to use them to go all the way to the White House. I am worried about what a future, less abrasive and controversial candidate may do with these tools.

America has never been closer to embracing authoritarian fascist-like leadership than at this moment. I am not saying that Donald Trump is a fascist. I am not name-calling. I am merely pointing out, as others have before me [see here and here], that he has been using a standard set of tools from the fascist playbook from the very beginning. We have seen it played out before in the populist rise of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco two generations ago.

The great battle on the world stage at that time was to defeat this right-wing authoritarian autocratic form of government known as fascism. Now, under the banner of “Make America Strong,” Americans seem willing to embrace it on their own soil. As Alan Gopnik recently warned in the New Yorker,

If Trump came to power, there is a decent chance that the American experiment would be over. This is not a hyperbolic prediction; it is not a hysterical prediction; it is simply a candid reading of what history tells us happens in countries with leaders like Trump. Countries don’t really recover from being taken over by unstable authoritarian nationalists of any political bent, left or right—not by Peróns or Castros or Putins or Francos or Lenins or fill in the blanks. The nation may survive, but the wound to hope and order will never fully heal. Ask Argentinians or Chileans or Venezuelans or Russians or Italians—or Germans. The national psyche never gets over learning that its institutions are that fragile and their ability to resist a dictator that weak. If he can rout the Republican Party in a week by having effectively secured the nomination, ask yourself what Trump could do with the American government if he had a mandate.

With the events of this last week, and the endorsement of Donald Trump for the presidency, I truly fear for America’s future. It has embarked on a very, very dark path from which it may be impossible to emerge.

This past week the Republican Party held its national convention in Cleveland, Ohio to confirm the nomination of Donald Trump as its candidate for the presidency. It did not go well.

During the extensive primary process of selecting delegates to the convention Trump had defeated 16 other Republican contenders and accumulated the required number of bound delegate votes to ensure his nomination. However a broad “Never Trump” movement of disaffected Republican leaders and delegates also emerged who were firmly committed to preventing Trump’s nomination at the convention.

Donald Trump personally orchestrated the convention’s theme, stage décor, and speaker list, which prominently featured his own family. Many prominent Republican leaders (including past presidents and presidential nominees) stayed away. In many ways it was more like a Trump family event than a RNC event. The convention was unlike any other in the history of the Republican Party.

The first and last day of the convention served as bookends to highlight the central message Trump wanted to present. Instead of Reagan’s memorable sunny “Morning in America” message, Trump’s message more on the order of “Be afraid; be very afraid.” According to Trump, we are in a time of crisis; everything is falling apart. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are to blame, and I am the only one who can save you.

The tone of the convention was orchestrated to generate a mood of fear, rage and loathing among the delegates.

The first day’s theme at the convention was “Make America Safe Again.” It featured the mother of one of the soldiers slain in the attack on Benghazi who blamed Hilary Clinton personally for the death of her son. This was followed by a video on the Benghazi attack (whose real purpose was to attack Hillary), followed by two former U.S. security contractors in Benghazi who falsely accused Hillary of watching the attacks live via drone feed and doing nothing.

Then the focus shifted to a lineup of speakers who talked about the tragic deaths of family members and the grave dangers posed to American lives by undocumented Hispanic immigrants. (The GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, called these presentations “the weaponization of grief.) Milwaukie County Sheriff David Clarke then launched an attack on Black Lives Matter and former New York mayor Rudi Guiliani whipped the crown into a frenzy by emphasizing the dangers posed by Islamic extremist terrorists and saying that Obama and Clinton would not be counted on to keep America safe. This led the way for Donald Trump to finally come on stage.

The convention theme on the second day was “Make America Work Again.” It was supposed to focus on jobs, but little was actually said about that. The real theme (echoing that of the previous day) was on how a Clinton presidency would put America in danger, featuring more attacks on Hillary’s character.

It was also on this day that Donald Trump became the official nominee of the Republican Party. However, rather than unifying the party around himself, dissention remained strongly in the air. Many delegates were still angry at the way the “Stop Trump” movement had been procedurally overruled by the platform committee and gavelled into defeat on the first day through a voice vote that was anything but decisive.

I remember as I heard the voice votes both yea and nay, how they sounded equally strong. If that many delegates at the convention were solidly opposed to Trump, I thought, it would take a lot of effort to mend fences. When speakers came to the mike to question the chair’s ruling, they were abruptly told to shut up and live with it. So much for mending fences.

On day three the theme was “Make America First Again,” but problems over party unity continued to surface. Ted Cruz was the only speaker of the day to present an actual conservative policy agenda; it was strangely lacking from the other speakers at the convention.

But Cruz was booed off stage when he refused to personally endorse Trump, instead encouraging delegates to “vote their conscience” in November. His wife Heidi had to have protection in leaving the arena. The next day Cruz explained that he could not support anyone who attacked his wife and his father the way Trump had done during the campaign. Trump, in turn, quickly doubled down on the story that Ted Cruz’ father was connected to John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. He even cited the cover of the National Inquirer as proof!

Donald Trump plans to create and fund super-PACs specifically aimed at ending the political careers of Ted Cruz and John Kasich should either run for office again, after both snubbed the Republican nominee during his party’s convention this week.

Talk about a vindictive streak!

Instead of uniting around Trump, the only thing the delegates seemed to be united on was their manifest hatred of Hillary Clinton. At various points orchestrated chants of “Lock Her Up” echoed through the arena, and sales of T-shirts with the slogan “Hillary for Prison” were said to be brisk. Some supporters at the convention screamed that Hillary should be shot. West Virginia delegate Michael Folk tweeted that she should be “tried for treason, murder, and crimes against the U.S. Constitution … then hung on the Mall in Washington, D.C.” And Trump’s advisor on veterans issues, Al Baldasaro, also stated that Hillary Clinton should be put in a firing line and shot for treason.

This is astonishing! Donald Trump has gone from encouraging his supporters to “rough up” dissidents at his rallies to standing by while his supports call for his chief opponent’s execution! Michael Enright, reporting for the CBC, called the attacks on Hillary Clinton at the convention “venomous.” In a report for CBC News, he noted how this shatters the conventional political rules of behaviour, saying

In 1983, 241 U.S. Marines were killed in a terrorist attack in Beirut. The president at the time was Ronald Reagan, a Republican.

[The next year] Democrats held their national nominating convention in San Francisco. They chose Walter Mondale and his running mate Geraldine Ferraro. Had they chosen the low road, they could have blamed Ronald Reagan for the deaths of those 241 Marines.

They didn’t dare.

Trump gave his “victory speech” on the final day of the convention. That, and reaction to it, will be the subject of my next blog.

Edward Clayton grew up in the US but has lived in Canada for the last 4 decades. He is a long time peace activist and committed to issues of social justice and good government. He reports on Canadian, American, and global politics from a Canadian perspective.